UH dean joins board
of sciences academy

Klaus Keil, University of Hawaii-Manoa planetary scientist and interim dean of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, has been appointed to a National Academy of Sciences board.

He is one of five new members chosen for the 29-member Space Studies Board, which is responsible for all activities within the national academies related to space science, communications and policy.

UH Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert said Keil "is one of the most accomplished and distinguished scientists at UH-Manoa. The academy and Dr. Keil's fellow board members will benefit immensely from his good counsel based on a lifetime of achievement in the field."

Keil has received national acclaim and awards for his contributions to the understanding of the early history of the solar system and origin and evolution of meteorites, asteroids and terrestrial planets.

He is the author of more than 620 research papers in the fields of cosmochemistry, geochemistry and petrology.

Among his honors have been the Apollo Achievement Award from NASA, the first George P. Merrill Award from the U.S. Academy of Sciences, the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and the Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society.

He joined NASA's Space Sciences Division at the Ames Research Center in 1963. He went to the University of Mexico's Department of Geology as a professor, then department chairman and director of the UNM Institute of Meteoritics.

He joined UH-Manoa in 1990 and became director of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in 1994. He was appointed interim dean of SOEST in August 2003.